Today I started my second week of fight training. last weeek was much tougher than I anticipated because I was so out of shape. Now, I am not going to tell you I am fat because that would be a bare faced lie but I did have the beginnings of a wee pot belly and I was certainly heavier. I weighed myself before starting training and I was shocked to discover I was about 90kg. That's around 14st or 198lb. Since I am fighting at 79kg, you can understand that I was amazed.

I am now around 82kg since I cut out a lot of crap in my diet and started traiining properly. let me tell you that crash loosing around 8kg is not nice! Every session last week felt like double what it was. At the end of an hour long class I felt like I had just completed two hours of hard sparring. My body was also starting to feel it as my left bicep and left shoulder started to give in. I rested well over the weekend and we eased off a little in sparring tonight so that my shoulder had an extra day but I think my body is adjusting to the harder training now.

I will not give away too much on what I am working on in my training sessions but I've only had one really bad session where I was in a foul mood afterwards because I felt I performed terribly, the rest have been fairly positive.

In training for my last fight I was focusing more on getting my body annd mind ready to fight, in that mental state where you can fight and not be self concious, as I found myself to be previously. That type of attitude is gone and I sorely want this one to end with my arms raised. My mental state has changed the way I approach training and in recognising this, my trainers have changed the training. last fight I only really went into that ring with my right hand, my right kick and rudimentary movement. This time however, I am training all my weapons and all angles. My knees are feeling really good from close, mid and long range. My hands are tighter and I am wasting less shots. My defence is feeling a bit tighter and can only improve as we get more sparring in. My kicks still need some work but they are perfectly functional. The fact that I am concerned more with correcting technique for the judges rather than power (of which there is plenty) in itself displays a marked improvement to the training for my last fight. I am satisfied with my progress and feel I am going to come into this fight a much better prepared fighter than last time. I am certain I will have no nerves this time and will win because I will be better prepared and in a better mental state than my opponent.

I said last time KO in the 3rd but my coach thinks that if I stick to the plan and don't lose my head  as I did last time then I could probably get a KO or TKO quicker than that. I certainly hope so. I want to make this opponent pay for my failure to win last time.

I am hungry.

I have been posting on this blog for  over three years now and this is my 100th post. So what have I done and what have I achieved?

Firstly, the main purpose of this blog was to encourage me to train more and to train consistently in whatever I was doing. At the time of starting this blog I was only training parkour. My first ever post has a good description of parkour if you want to read it.

The main thing I have gained from doing and studying parkour is that what I wanted from parkour was something to give my life purpose. I wanted to feel alive and get caught up in a moment rather than always be extremely aware of the long term.

Physically I discovered that without practice I have strong legs and decent balance and with training I have very strong legs and great balance. I also found out I needed to work on my upper body. I knew it was my weak point but I didn't realise how weak that point was!

After discovering the motto of "etre fort pour etre utile" I found that this hit a nerve with me and the quest to be strong to be useful will now stay with me for life, thanks to parkour and Erwan LeCorre.

Once this motto was a part of my self identity, I decided to take up boxing in order to supplement my parkour training but ended up accidentally taking up Muay Thai, and I have never looked back. Muay Thai took up much more time than parkour and eventually completely replaced it. I was immersed in studying and practicing Muay Thai. My main goals were to gain self confidence and keep fit. I never imagined I would fight.

Three years on from the start of my blog and my life is in a completely different place that I would have expected it to be. I gave up a decent paying job with good prospects and good security to return to studying and have now really discovered who I am. I will be attending Dundee University to start a three year MA Psychology (hons) in September and I plan on using psychology as a career in itself, either councelling or therapy of some sort so that I can continue to help people, but in a more effective way.

That theme of helping people continues in Muay Thai. I am fighting for the second time on September 19th so that I can help train other people for fights and so that I can tewach effectively and with the respect of my students. I do plan on becoming a Muay Thai instructor, which is actually within my grasp this year if I put my mind to it. My coach had nothing but good things to say about my future plans and even my planned foray into MMA competition even though he does not like grappling and ground fighting. It was he who has encouraged me to teach and to become and instructor, even going as far as saying that if time permits I should open up a club of my own in Dundee!

Although it is fractured and split over 100 posts and three years, you can look back over this blog and see me change. It is more apparent than ever that I am now a completely different person than I was when I started. I am no longer scared of physical confrontation and my instincts are changing from flight to fight. My diet is getting better and I'm starting to cut out all junk food and have found that I mostly don't like it at all, apples are way better than snickers! Lynn and I are about to celebrate our first year together as a married couple and we have a bright future ahead. I've even started to get a handle on my money and anyone who knows me will know that money doesn't just burn a hole in my pocket, it burns my pants right off!

In the future:

I would like to fight maybe 3 Muay Thai fights in total and a few MMA bouts.

I would like to have two children.

I would like to be a psychology doctor.

I would like to have a clean, whole food diet.

I would like to save 10% of each monthly income.

I would like to visit France, Germany, Iceland, Denmark, Russia, Brazil, Thailand, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

I would like to call one of the above "home"

These are my new plans for the future. The blog title "kieran in motion" remains because I would like my life to be constantly in motion and embrace change as the necessary force it is. I do not want to be come stagnant. I want to remain in motion.

Kieran

Wow, totally forgot to post on the 20th! I have been matched for the September fight but I got the wrong date. It will be Septermber 19th.

My (mostly) bodyweight training is going quite well considering I've only been doing it for two weeks now.

Week 1 - 06/07/09 to 12/07/09

Monday - Jump Squats up stairs x 3. Three sets of 15 stairs in the entry to my flat. Only rest between exercised was the tie it took to walk back down the stairs, about 45 seconds maybe.

Calf raises with 10kg weight on shoulder - I could say it was a sandbag but I'll be honest and say it was cat litter!

Bulgarian split squats with 6kg hand weights, 5x5 on each leg.

I woke up on the Tuesday with a twisted knee, probably because I didn't warm up for what was quite a tough workout for me so I didn't do anything else this week because walking hurt!

Week 2 - 13/07/09 to 19/07/09

Monday

Pull ups, 5x5 - Used progressive weight addition, first set w' no weight, 2nd with 3kg, 3rd with 6kg, 4th with 3kg and 5th with no extra weight. This is the formula I follow wherever I mention progressive weight addition, the weights will be different though.

Towel Fly, 5x5 - This is where you start in a press up position with two towels in your hands, slide your arms out as far as they go then you use your shoulders etc to pull yourself back into a press up position. Can be done with dumbells too.

Dips, 5x5 - progressive weight addition with 3kg and 6kg

Raised feet pressups, 25 - just to finish with something that would push me, test me and hurt me in equal measure!

Tuesday was Thai boxing where I didn't have a really hard session but instead worked on footwork and angles in combination to 1-2 and 1-2-3 combinations involving punches, knees and kicks on the freestyle pads. Worked the heavy bag with same things but at full pace. Technically a rest day!

Wednesday

Assisted leg raises, 2x10 - this was leg raises using a skipping rope looped around my legs so that I could ensure it was slow enough to work my core properly.

Dorsal raises, 5x5

Mountain climbers, 4x30 seconds

Single leg plank, 30 seconds

Thursday: I was working so didn't go to Thai boxing.

Friday: Was scheduled to do lower body but knee was still a bit tweaky so I didn't want to risk it.

Saturday

I was grappling from 9-11. Worked on guard and half guard. Drilled guard passing. had a good war with Neil. Finally got a sub! Triangled Neil twice although one was a tap due to exhaustion on his half!

Sunday

I was grappling and doing padwork with Alan and Graham in the morning. had a rally good workout and sweated a bucket.

This week has been patchy since I was working a lot of late shifts and was simply too tired to train.

20/07/09 to 24/07/09

Monday

Weighted split squats, 5x5 with 6kg hand weihts fashioned onto my shoulders like a barbell

Stair squat jumps x3

weighted calf raises, 12x3 - same as split squat weight arrangement.

Tuesday I didn't work and took as a rest day. trained muay thai at night and had a blast smashing the pads and my shins doing drills involving checking kicks with a new fighter with us called Ross.

Wednesday I was working late.

Thursday I was working late also. I had planned on doing upper body but have not done this.

Today I had business to attend to and had this scheduled as a rest day. Went to Dundee and bought supplements for my training. Reflex One Stop is getting a try out this time - all in one vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs, creatine and glutamine!


I completed each rep of every exercise slowly to recruit more muscle fibres. The concentric contraction (pulling myself up in pull up for example) was 2 seconds and the eccentric contraction was 3 or 4 seconds depending on exercise and my own judge of time since I used a rough measure of time (elephants). I used 1 min rest between sets and 5 mins rest between exercises in most cases. Apparently you can gain upto 755 of your strength this way abnd thus work yourself harder than you normally would be able to. This would equal greater gains in the same time.

Tomorrow I will be doing a demonstation of Thai Boxing with my camp at the Seafrong Spectacular. We will also be fundraising so I hope it is a nice day. Going to a Buddy Holly tribute in the evening, should be good!

I will be following the above type of schedule for my fight but also adding Thai training Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat evenings fo two hours also. I will be swapping some exercises for others in order to make it more fun and also to recruit different secondary muscle groups. I hope this will result in me being stronger and in better shape for this opponent. I'm predicting a stoppage in the 3rd - you heard it here first!

Finally, it has come to my attention that more people than my wife regularly read this, so if you are one of these people then thank you very much for following my blog, sometimes my writing is so terrible I hope nobody else reads it! My 100th post will be a summary of what I have achieved since I started this blog and what I want to achieve in the next academic year.

Kieran

This is my 98th post in this blog. My 100th post will be to explain what I have been doing recently in order to get stronger. I'm firstly trying a bunch of routines three times a week using minimal equipment and I'll do this for four weeks.

I go on holiday to Tiree for the first week in August, during which I want to be running on the beach regulalrly and kayaking in the sea! Lynn and I are also going to do a lot of walking and photography of the local wildlife and scenery.

When I come back I will either be buying weights or joining a gym for a month to try out another routine, which will be followed three days a week for another four weeks UNLESS the bodyweight and minimal equipment routine makes a large difference to my size and strength. If I am to be fighting on September 18th then I would rather not go to the gym unless I have to as travelling there and back (either to the garage we will keep our equipment in or to the gym) adds on too much time since I will be working  as well as training muay thai almost every night. If using minimal equipment and bodyweight exercises is not giving me the results I need then I'll try out the gym plan even though it will be more expensive in both money and time.

I've been sorting out my nutrition too and the food plan and shopping Lynn and I have been following has been going for a year now. I'm still eating some processed and junk foods (white bread, ice cream etc) but most of the stuff we eat is made in the house from scratch. I've not mentioned it on this blog much but my personal finances are being managed better. I plan on keeping an accounts book and logging receipts and expenditure in it so I can keep track of my money better. I also need to start internet banking.

I bought a notebook to use as a work and training diary so my next two posts will be updated straight from there at two week intervals. The plan being that I will look and feel great at the end of these next 4 weeks. I'm working legs, core  and upper body on different days and also grappling at least once a week and muay thai at least once a week, should be two - no need for running or sprint intervals yet. The full plan will be uploaded on 20th July, the start of my third week. Since I am keeping a training diary I will be able to upload to this blog the honest excercise, reps and effort I've been putting in.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun and summer - I'm not, but that's another story!

Kieran

Started up a Flikr account. I'm over at flikr.com/photos/keerin

I really enjoyed photography when I was doing media studies at college, after I left school and continued onto Dundee College to study photography. Circumstances dictated that I had to leave and on top of that, the SLR that I owned at the the time had a severely scratched lens. Being poor and stupid I threw it out, not thinking to keep the camera body, get my lens polished or even just buy a new lens (all possibilities now that I thiink back). I really enjoyed photography, despite the fact I wasn't very good at it. I really enjoyed the darkroom and processing of films and photos and I enjoyed taking pictures without the aid of a digital viewscreen for immediate consideration.

Anyway, a friend was selling a number of old Soviet cameras and I purchased them (personal note - pay Graeme!). Also, my wife bought me an old Praktica from the charity shop where she volunteers. I now have a healthy collection of vintage cameras and lenses. These are:

Praktica B200
Fed 5
Zenit 12XP
Zenit 19

The Praktica is a German camera and came in  a nice wee leather shoulder bag with seperate compartments for the camera and lens, another lens and a hotshoe flash, all included.  I'll edit this post more when I have time to check the sizes and specs of them.

The Fed 5 is Ukranian and was made in the '70's. It is a Leica copy so I can buy new lenses for it as long as I get Leica lenses. It comes in a lovely brown case. This is probably my favourite camera because it feels lovely in your hands and the mechanics sound so smooth. Winding it on and releasing the shutter is actually a pleasure to feel and hear. It may not be satisfying to people who prefer the huge CLUNK, but it is to me.

The Zenit 12XP and 19 both came with a variety of lenses and were both fitted with their standard 58mm lenses.  I have a 28mm wide angle lens, 2.5/120mm lens, 4/120mm lens,  Macro lens and also an 80-200mm zoom lens. I was trying out all these lenses the other day on an excursion along the cliffs in Arbroath so hopefully they come out alright. I've only used the Zenit 12XP so far because the Zenit 19 is a total beast of a camera and also only works with two watch batteries, which I don't have right now.

My future plans for photography is to get the chemicals and spiral tank to develop my own black and white negatives and eventually get an enlarger and the approprate equipment to be able to process my own pictures. I can always "black out" a room to use as a dark room and we have a cupboard that can be gutted (minus Lynn's sweing equipment) and used for this purpose if need be. It costs £7.99 to get a roll of B&W film developed in Arbroath and takes 2 weeks! I want to speak to the college and try to convince them to open the labs they have to the public (I.E. - me!) so that i can use there rooms for B&W photography. I prefer this over colour, but then again if you look at my Flikr you will see the lovely colours that the Fed 5 produces that have started to sway me to colour, if only with the Fed....

Kieran

Thoughts from first grappling session

I have been thinking about my grappling yesterday.  I think that the reason ground fighting is so exciting is because it is like learning to walk again. We have only a very basic knowledge of how to move on the ground and most of this knowledge is either crawling or attempting to stand up. In a fight, crawling is giving your back and will not help at all and standing up simply isn't an option at times. It is interesting to learn how to move on the ground when you are on your back, or on your knees because we do not have the experience of this. Since this blog started off as an exploration of movement (hence the name kieran in motion) I find it quite ironic that things have moved full circle.

Anyway, when I was rolling yesterday I found I was able to sweep my more experienced partners more often than I or they expected or anticipated but when I got myself into a more dominant position I lost it very quickly.  My partners were often not getting the submission on me that they intended because I had good defennce anticipation but they tapped me out with submissions that I gave them through leaving openings while defending something else.  This shows me that I have a decent level of defence to start with but that I need to remember that nobody else but me is thinking of things in sigle movements. I will sweep from in guard to full mount then immediately be put on my back again, for example and this happens because I am thinking in my head "right, now I am in mount" and trying to switch to "mount" mode in my head whereas the other guys are thinking "I can sweep to mount and then flatten him out and pressure him into a keylock and if that doesn't work I will move up and try forr the armbar" etc etc.

Secondly, I  am completely forgetting about my own position when I go for submissions. A perfect example is when going for a triangle I will put all of my attention into breaking his grip or straightening his arm (etc) that I forget to keep my legs tight and he pulls out or passes my legs.  I know what I am supposed to do if I ge stacked when going for a triangle but I focus too much on one aspect and neglect positional safety. This ties in with my previous point. I am thinking about the arm and only the arm wheras my partner is thinking that he can pass my legs then get into side control then pass to mount. I need to think more strategically in terms of positional hierarchy and body mechanics.

Finally, my legs and arms are not working in concert all too often.  This ties in with everything I have just said. I am not used to using my arms and legs to control someone when I am on my back or on top of someone and so I have no working knowledge of doing so. I know in my head what I should be doing but concentrate too hard on one aspect that I forget what I am doing with the rest of my body. Then becaise he is thinking three moves ahead and I am only thinking 1 second ahead if my move fails he can then implement his gameplan.

I have three goals for the next time I roll which should be either Thursday or Saturday:

1. Whatever position I am in, I will try to use both my legs and arms to move to a better position, whether that position is mount to half guard or the end of a submission.
2. Once in a dominant position, or even an advantageous neutral position I want to be able to control and maintain this position for at least fifteen seconds. Bonus points if I get this on the biggest and strongest of the guys!
3. I want to tap out my partners with one of the submissions I know I can do easily: guillotine, neck crank, arm triangle, climbing arm bar, triangle. I addition, I should get used to firing off these submission attempts in rapid succession, most probably in this rough order.  This will increase my chances of either getting the tap or getting swept! I want to work them in this order because then if one fails I can go for the next one and I have a plan. I know the neck crack can be used as a transition and the arm triangle can be rolled into rear mount so I can use these as part of my game plan: if neck crank isn't toight enough but he is trapped I can sweep him using it because he has no arm to base out with on one side, for example.

 I will try to achieve these three aims and report back later on how I got on.

Last week Allan came to our muay thai class. He and Colin have known each other for a while so he decided to add in muay thai to his kickboxing and boxing experience.  As we got talking, it turns out that Allan has beebn grappling for years too and has competed across Europe in grappling tournaments.  He rolls with a few guys in the squash courts at the leisure centre, the same as Graham and I.

I joined them today for a 2 hour session and learned a lot.  There was only 4 of us but that meant we always had someone to partner up with. We are all different sizes and shapes which can only be a good thing.

I'm going to be training with them on Wednesday too hopefully.  If I can progress we enough then hopefully early next year I can have an ammy mma fight and take it from there.

I will no longer be fighting in August as I was not matched by the promoter.  Rather, a seperate promotion is putting on a show on September 18th that I am putting my name forward for.  Hopefully I can be matched for this one.

Also, I have found someone in Arbroath who regularly gets together with others and does submission wrestling so I will be training with these guys too hopefully. I hope to have an MMA fight either at the end of the year or next year depending on how fast I can learn and progress with grappling and groundfighting.

So I have put my name forward for a fught on August 29. I was training last time to compete. Just to get in the ring was my goal. This time I want to win. More info to come.

BJJ roadmap

I have been visualising and daydreaming about ground fighting for a while now and recently bought a notebook so I can write down technique, ideas and plans that I think of or come across on the internet or book. When I get some actual tutelage I'll keep instruction and notes in there too. One thing I though would be useful while I can't get any physical practice is to formulate a plan of sorts for when I get in certain positions. I bought "Mastering Juijitsu" by Renzo Gracie and Erich Krauss on the advice of Mr Slideyfoot, a poster on the Sherdog forums who also runs a superb blog on his BJJ training as well as including book and DVD reviews. This is a great book and discusses strategy at great length. One thing they stress is that BJJ players will always have a plan based on positional hierarchy. I've also been reading Stephan Kesting's newsletters and his free e-book. One of the big things that he points out is creating maps in order to progress and have a solid plan you can focus on. The ones that he gives as a demonstration seeed lacking to me and I've discovered why. They do not have specific detail of how to get to each position.

In order to learn better and to understand positions better I've created a roadmap for my beginning steps into BJJ. I have outlined three sweeps or transitions and three attacks from the guard that I would like to work on. Once I have these comfortably in my head I will move on to other disadvantageous position before moving onto advantageous positions. I'll try get three of each from each position before the end of the year. here is the first one I will be workin on. I've missed out some things because I've picked things that I like the sound of, or have worked on before and would like to continue drilling. Obviously the missing positions will be added to in time to create a whole "game".

If you have any tips on these techniques or can give me a better plan of attack then let me know!

A mile in someone elses shoes...

This old adage also holds true for yourself if you take your shoes off.

I've recently been walking barefoot in order to toughen my feet and train more naturally. I walked home from work tonight in my bare feet; around two miles. One thing I have noticed so far is that when I read about muscles being worked that hadn't been worked properly in years, it was all true. I thought I would be a bit better off since I walk about in barefoot in the house often and I have to go barefoot for Muay Thai. My Achilles has been supported well in shoes and is now aching from actually being used for a prolonged period of time. The blisters are unreal! I also burnt my foot walking on the tarmac earlier today when I went to college for some books... Another thing I have noticed is that most people don't actually comment on your bare feet.

Since it is a Friday night I thought I may get a lot of comments but I didn't. A car drove past really fast and the driver shouted out the window to put my shoes on (I was carrying them). Later on, woman asked what I was doing.

"Going home"

"But you have no shoes on!" as if I hadn't realised yet.
This continued for a minute or so until she warned me that I may step in dog poop, so I told her that I would be careful and we parted ways at that. Finally I had a discussion with a few older women coming home from a night out.

"Have you sore feet?" they asked me. I replied that I actually did, and showed them my swollen and bruised ankle and foot.

"I have sore feet too, but I am wearing heels" one informed me. They made sure I would be OK and that I didn't have far to go, which was nice of them.

It sounds like a really obvious thing to say but I really enjoy walking barefoot because I can feel with my feet! I forgot how it felt to feel different things with my feet and different surfaces give different sensations. I noticed a real difference in temperature between shade and light with my feet. Different types of pavement are making me walk differently; I will hop over parts so that I can walk on tarmac for example.

In addition to different types of pavement, kerbs are surprisingly varied with some feeling really gritty and other feeling really velvety. Walking on grass is obviously much nicer but unfortunately the threat of dog poop is all too real. A nice surprise was walking over rubber, where the pavement has been raised at a bus stop with a rubber ramp. I didn't have any type of memory of walking over this type of surface barefoot so it was nice to feel something I don't think I've felt before, which must be a rare experience for most adults in our "advanced" civilization.

I think I will give barefoot a rest for a few days to let my blisters calm down. I have noticed however, my swollen ankle hurts less when I can use the natural motion of my foot rather than the motion my shoes think I should make. I will wait a few weeks before I try any parkour in my bare feet so that my body can become fully accustomed to walking naturally again!

Kieran

With the release of UFC Undisputed, weekly Bellator events and relentless promotion by the UFC, I can get my MMA fix pretty much anywhere and at any time. My bathroom floor always has at least one copy of Fighters Only ready for me to pick up at any point and there are another two or three magazines I could buy from the shop if I wanted. This MMA saturation has only made my desire to fight so much more, and I am now setting my sights on competing in MMA as well as Muay Thai.

I would like to try a few amateur rules MMA fights. These forbid all strikes to the head, both standing and grounded. They also do not allow heel hooks and knee bars. The rules system in Scotland (not sure if this is the same in England or America) is set up so that one can progress through the amateur, semi pro then onto pro fights in a gradual manner which provides a good learning environment, something I feel Scottish Muay Thai could benefit from tremendously actually.

I would obviously need to work on my grappling and ground game a lot, but I was planning on making weekly trips to Aberdeen in order to train with my buddy David Banks at his gym - Team Jigoku. I will have to check with my coach to see if he is ok with me training stand up with him and ground with someone else and representing both camps when it comes to fight time: "representing Phraya Pichai Muay Thai Camp and Team Jigoku", that kinda thing. If Colin OK's this than I'll need to check with Team Jigoku's coach to see if he is OK with me coming along to their training sessions too!

If I had a few amateur fights and won some of them I would then be looking to fight in at least one semi-pro fight so that I can punch to the head mostly, but also just for the experience. I'm still wary of elbows so Pro MMA is out as well as 'A' class Muay Thai.

Graham has said he is happy to help with both aspects and David is more than willing to travel to Arbroath to help with my ground game. On top of that Mike and Dale in Dundee are there too, and I've yet to grapple with them so that would be fun.

I have a few more things to do before I'm finished college and can't do any of the above without finishing college work so I can definitely get into Uni next year! This year I would like to have one Muay Thai fight and one or possibly two MMA fights if time allows for it. That would make me a happy bunny. :)

I'm getting over my anti-capitalist rage but only the venomous ranting part.

I'm going to start training barefoot so that it work my legs more when I'm running and conditioning. I can see hill sprints being really hard in barefoot but that has to mean they are working muscles which haven't been engaged before because of shoes.

I am starting off small outside and done 200 meters last night and I'm going to try 400 today.

Since I started working as well as studying, I constantly feel tired, unmotivated and completely non-plussed about studying. This is at the same time as I have to hand in five essays in four weeks.

What a ridiculous system we live in. In order to submit quality work as well as give time for students to actually understand and absorb what they are learning, the student must live with as much spare money as your average Chinese citizen, and that is given in the form of a loan. I've been given a loan of just over £4,000 for this academic year. My rent alone is £2,300 a year. At the end of every month I am left with about £70, that's before I buy food by the way - which Lynn pays for about 90% of the time. In order to have any money to help pay for food and other household stuff, as well as *god forbid* spare money I have to work.

I am not against working at all. I get bored and lethargic if I am not doing some sort of work but working while studying leaves me with no energy to do either properly. How can we expect any respectable advance of knowledge when students are treated with as much respect as the supposed "underclass".

This is all rhetorical of course, masses of students are terrible for the economy so the government and other for-profit organisations are gonna be looking down upon funding colleges and universities so that people have to go into employment rather than further education.

It just really makes me angry when people like me who really are in search of knowledge in order to improve their own lives and the lives of others are disregarded for the sake of money and greed and gross selfishness. I'm finding it realy hard to enjoy life at the moment. I wish I could just read, write, exercise and enjoy time off with friends and family without having all the extra pressure and exhaustion that being a student now demands. Frank Furedi needs to be read and agreed with by everyone in government. Honestly, what a shit life this is. It makes me want to just give it all up, really. I'm sure that people reading this are going to think I'm a child with no concept of "the real world" but it is the opposite. I have seen this "real world" and I wish I hadn't as it is miserable.

That's my exam out of the way and in another four weeks I should have finished all my coursework and be free for the summer!

That probably means more work but it also means I'm free to do more things I can't do without money! Travel to Aberdeen to train with David, travel to Glasgow to see all the GPK folk, travel to Dundee numerous times to see Dale and Mike for some grappling, practice with Vulsellum, Duncan Idaho and Welcome Home, Explorer... The list goes on.

Even my holidays are jam-packed!

Who would have thought that standing for a long time would be so tiring?

Working at McDonalds isn't as bad as people like to make out. Customers are generally understanding if something is taking a while to cook, as they then know that they are getting fresh food. The staff are all pretty helpful and all good fun. The kitchen isn't that greasy really, and it gets deep cleaned every night anyway - I know because I was washing all the detachable parts of everything until about half one this morning!

The hardest part is standing at a till really, the limited movement really kills my legs. That's part of the McDonald way if it busy, people are put to one or two specific tasks in a Taylorist wet dream. We have one guy serving fried, the till people collect drinks and food from the stations, we will have three people serving drive-thru in the order of - take order, pay, get food whereas usually the first two would be combined.

I've only been able to do minimal studying for my final exam on Wednesday but I have a very good idea of what to do for all of them and I'm certain I will pass with at least the B that I need to get into Uni.

A subject I rarely talk about in his blog is reading, of which I do a lot. I'm usually reading one or two fiction and one or two non fiction books at any given time. The different books are for different situation - on the bus, lunch breaks, bored pick-me-ups etc. Just now I am reading 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke, about t start 'Chindi' by Jack McDevitt as my fiction books. I'm also reading 'Liquid Fears' by Zygmunt Bauman, 'The McDonaldization of Society' by Gorge Ritzer (started before I worked there!), 'Where Have All The Intillectuals Gone?' by Frank Furedi and also 'Popular Culture' edited by Guins & Cruz, being a collection of essays on different aspects of popular culture. This book is great - I might have to buy it. It has essays (or pats of other works) by Marx, Adorno, Hebdige, Lipsitz, McRobbie, Benjamin, Debord, Hall and loads other. It's bloody good!

Kieran

I wish Bellator wasn't broadcast on a Wednesday. I have to avoid most of the sites I visit to miss the results. Then I come on blogger and MMA by Numbers have the result "Reyes stunning KO over Payan" - even though no-one outside America (and even then, those who actually have ESPN Deportes!) can see it until Wednesday!

I'm sick of getting the big fights spoiled for me. Sherdog and MMA by Numbers are the worst. Surely it can't be that hard to just say "Bellator VI results" and leave it at that unless you click on 'read more' or something.

Bollocks.

Instead of 200 words, I wrote 445 last night so I've only to write a minimum of 155 words to hit my target today, but I'm in the middle of a scene so I think that will be pretty easy. I'm on chapter 4 of an anticipated 10.

Bought Men's Health yesterday, it is pretty rubbish. There are a few helpful articles and some good reading but maybe not £3.75 worth. Saying that, £3.75 isn't a lot of money really.

Kieran

Novel word count

I'm aiming for 20,000 words by the end of the summer. I've written today and currently have 5513 words or:

27.57%

I've just finished the third of ten chapters and extended the plans for the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th chapters with a rouch outline written for the 9th and 10th chapters.

I'm going to try write at least 200 words every day now that I know that I have a solid plan for nearly every chapter. That is a whole 1% of my target of 20,000 so it sounds achievable and also all those 1's add up. If I stick to at least 200 words every day then I will reach my target by Friday 17 July. So there's a speculative target for ya!

There are so many things I want to do in such a short space of time it is unreal. Of course, I want to fight again. I've stated that many times in my blog and also to people in real life, especially Lynn and Graham, who hear it every other day. Like

I have also recently said, I have fallen back in love with parkour and I have specific goals to reach in relation to parkour before the summer is over which will require training and dedication. Add to this that I want to travel to Glasgow and Dundee a few times to do parkour with those guys. I also want to start studying for university next year so that I'm not coming into a new learning environment totally rusty from a summer of no psychology!

Finally, I want to continue writing both my novel and my short story. Both of these feature parkour in one way or another. My novel is based on a concept album worth of lyrics I wrote a few years ago which have come to nothing music wise. It is a sci-fi novel set on Mars around 10,000 years ago where an imaginary race of pre-humans are in the process of their industrial revolution and also the beginnings of a planet wide civil war. I'm about 10% through the first draft of this. The short story is a bit more down to Earth (lol) and is the story of a guy who has just split from his first serious girlfriend after they moved from school to university and how he deals with it.

I know exactly what is to happeen in both of these and i really enjoy getting stuck in and writing (both fiction and non-fiction). The problem is really just making time. For my novel I have character notes, location maps, plot twists etc all ready. For my short story I have written both the start and the end, but not the middle, where the meat of the story is...

I'm not great at sticking to timetables unless I rely on someone else for plans, like in my fight training but to get any of this stuff done I'll need to stick strictly to some sort of plan. I'm such a procrastinator too. I've got my final exam at college in eight days and I need to study for it (three questions, three different subjects, unseen question, three hours) today since I'm not working and I'm too tired to concentrate on it! Stupid McDonalds.

Oh well, best be getting onwards with studying research methods in the social sciences, the work of Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky in cognitive development for psychology and also the impact of poverty upon culture for sociology. Fun day today...

Kieran